News

Alison makes it six!

9 May 2012 09:24am

By Peter Jones

Olympic delight for Alison Williamson

Alison Williamson will take part in her sixth successive Olympic Games this summer, after being confirmed as a member of Team GB.

Alison, 40, will line up with Naomi Folkard and Amy Oliver in the Olympic women's archery team tournament at Lord's and the Athens bronze medallist will be among 64 contesting the individual tournament.

And the Antalya World Cup recurve team gold medallists of last weekend, Alan Wills, Larry Godfrey and Simon Terry, will represent Team GB in the men's tournament at Lords, between 27 July and 3 August.

The announcement of the six GB London Olympic archers means that Alison and Alan received the official backing of Performance Director Sara Symington and Olympic Coach Lloyd Brown after finishing third at the end of the selection process.

Alison said: "I'm so thrilled and proud to have made it to my sixth Olympics. It makes all the sacrifices, and all the hard work, over many years, worthwhile.

"Now I can start to look forward to the enormous honour of representing my country at a home Olympic Games. It just doesn't get any better!"

As the three men gave themselves a timely pre-Olympic boost with their success in Antalya last Sunday, Alison, Amy and Naomi proved they work well as a team when they took the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010.

And as Alison looks forward to a remarkable sixth Games, Naomi, 28, becomes only the second GB woman to appear in three Olympics, while Amy, 24, will be making her debut. She becomes the 33rd archer to represent GB at the Games since the sport returned to the schedule in 1972.

Simon, Alan and Larry will all be taking part in their second successive Olympic Games. Larry, 35, also went to Athens in 2004, when he came fourth, while Simon, 38, was a double bronze medallist as an 18 year old at Barcelona in 1992. Alan, 30, is taking part in his second Olympics.

"Winning that gold medal at the weekend proves that we're back in business, and that's given us a real lift in the week that the team to represent GB at the Olympics is announced," said Larry.

"But we won't be resting on our laurels, there's still a lot of work to do ahead of the Olympics and, trust me, the standards in Turkey were outstanding. While we've proved what we're capable of, we all know that we have to be totally focused between now and the start of the Olympic archery tournament."

Archery GB Olympic Coach Lloyd Brown said all six archers had worked "extremely hard" to secure their places, and he is confident Team GB has six talented, competitive and dedicated archers representing them at the London 2012 Games.

"I congratulate all six who made the team, they worked extremely hard, and I'm confident they'll all be very competitive in the individual tournaments, and together in the team events, as the guys proved at the weekend," said Lloyd, who coached fellow American Justin Huish to an individual gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and USA to a team gold the same year.

"The competition for places was very intense, and that tells me we have both a healthy strength in depth, and some very good young archers waiting to break through."

Sara Symington, Archery GB's Performance Director, appointed in 2009 with the responsibility of making sure that everything was in place to ensure British archers were fully prepared for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, said the intense preparations will continue right up until the start of the Games.

She said: "No stone has been left unturned in the pursuit of ensuring our archers are fully prepared, and at the top of their game, ahead of the Olympics.

"We have an extremely experienced squad who have had to work very hard to fight off determined competition for a place at the Games. It's a great achievement by all six archers to maintain such high levels of consistency over a long time, and to fend off their rivals."

Seamus Gallagher has just been named sports personality of the year. But his wife and mother-in-law had to pick up the award at the Ally Theatre, County Tyrone, because Seamus was too busy training at an Archery GB Para Academy!

Sara Symington has today advised that she will be leaving Archery GB. Sara has been offered the role of Performance Director at England Netball, which she has accepted. She will be leaving Archery GB on 6 March.

Seamus Gallagher has just been named sports personality of the year. But his wife and mother-in-law had to pick up the award at the Ally Theatre, County Tyrone, because Seamus was too busy training at an Archery GB Para Academy!

Sara Symington has today advised that she will be leaving Archery GB. Sara has been offered the role of Performance Director at England Netball, which she has accepted. She will be leaving Archery GB on 6 March.